Special Issue: Some Things You Might Not Know about Asian Aesthetics
Evaluating Indian Aesthetics
Saam Trivedi Brooklyn College, City University of New York
“…globalization is…the next big artworld idea…” - Noël Carroll1
Do the art and aesthetics of the four oldest human civilizations—those of Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), Egypt, India, and China, all of which incidentally flourished long AMERICAN SOCIETY before such landmark dates in world history as 1066, 1607, and 1776—have anything to teach us today? More specifically, I focus here on classical Indian aesthetics and the rasa for aesthetics theory; leaving it to others with greater expertise in ancient Chinese, Egyptian and other An Association for Aesthetics, aesthetics to undertake similar projects. Does Indian aesthetics have anything of value and Criticism and Theory of the Arts modern relevance to us today, both generally and in the West? In what follows, I suggest that the answer to this question is in the affirmative. Volume 33 Number 1 Spring 2013 1. Exposition
1 Evaluating Indian Aesthetics, by Saam I begin by setting out some basic ideas of the rasa theory of classical Indian aesthetics as found in Bharata’s Natyasastra2—hereafter NS—an ancient Sanskrit text on dramaturgy the Trivedi precise dates of which we need not be much concerned with but which various scholars— 5 Contemporary Philosophical Aesthetics in who disagree about such things—place anywhere in time from the fifth century BCE to China: A Re-Reading of the Aesthetics No- the eighth century CE. Note in passing that it is not my purpose in this essay to engage in tion of Ganxing , by Eva Kit Wah Man comparative aesthetics, and so, for the most part, I will not compare ideas and passages in Bharata’s text with thoughts about drama and the other arts in Western aesthetics such 7 Japanese Aesthetics, by Carol Steinberg as, for example, in Aristotle’s Poetics; some might, in any case, doubt how far such a com- Gould and Mara Miller parison and contrast might go given that while we have the entire text of Bharata’s NS, we sadly do not possess all of Aristotle’s work. Note also that, for the most part, I will set 11 News from the National Office aside later commentators on Bharata (such as the tenth and eleventh century CE Kashmir Shaivite Abhinavagupta), for there is reason to think that many of these later writers may 11 Aesthetics News have given a religious and cosmological twist to what is at core an aesthetic theory and can be understood as such, quite apart from religion;3 here I disagree with writers such 11 Conference Reports as Susan Schwartz who suggests that the goal of Indian aesthetics is to facilitate religious transformation.4 Note too that while the rasa theory’s claims were originally about drama 12 Calls for Papers (which included dance and music as part of theatrical performances of ancient Indian 16 Upcoming Events plays) and literature understood broadly, over time they have also been extended to dance, sculpture, architecture, and music; claims about rasa probably cannot, however, 18 Active Aestheticians be extended outside the arts to cover such things as beauty in nature. In Memoriam 19 The central ideas of Bharata’s rasa theory of aesthetics can be found chiefly in chapters 6 and 7 of the NS (VI & VII). Bharata distinguishes ordinary, real-life psychological states (bhava) from aesthetic sentiments or emotions or flavors or relishes (rasa). There are forty- one psychological states of which eight are durable (sthayibhava) while the other thirty- three (which we need not be much concerned with) are transient even if complementary. It is these eight durable psychological states—love, laughter, compassion, anger, energy, aesthetics-online.org fear, disgust, and astonishment—that when presented in a play (or an artwork broadly)
SPRING 2013 give rise to or develop into the eight rasas or aesthetic emotions or etc. that are associated with the psychological state represented: the flavors recognized in drama, as will be explained later, that involves experiencer must universalize their own emotion, transcending its both what is expressed on stage and also the audience’s uptake, and particularities so as to recognize the universalized emotion in the work. with which they have a one-one correspondence. The eight rasas Moreover, the psychological states portrayed infuse the meaning of are: erotic love (sringara), comic laughter (hasya), grief (karuna), fury the play in spectators, pervading them with words, gestures, and (raudra), heroic spirit (vira), fear (bhayanaka), revulsion (bibhatsa), representations. Also, as Eliot Deutsch6 points out, rasa is constituted and wonder (adbhuta). And of these eight rasas, four—erotic love, by the process of aesthetic perception, involving both the work and fury, heroic spirit, and revulsion—are considered original, the other an experience of it, and is not something that exists solely in the work four rasas arising from them; a mimicry of erotic love gives us comic (in an objectivist-formalist sense) nor solely in us (in a subjectivist- laughter, grief emerges from fury, heroic spirit yields wonder, while romantic-sentimentalist sense). The artwork controls or determines revulsion gives rise to fear. Note also that for any given play, one rasa rather than causes the response of the experiencer, and the imper- must predominate so as to give unity to the discourse, and the others sonality of its aesthetic content allows the work to be intersubjective if present must be subsidiary to it. even while its intensity also makes it highly individual.
With regard to the psychological states, four sorts of things are dis- 2. Criticisms tinguished. The first is the determinant or external cause or stimulus (vibhava) of the psychological state, so in the case of erotic love, for Before examining what, if anything, we might learn from the rasa example, the stimulus might be the season or a flower or ornaments theory, here are some quick concerns. To begin with, the emotive theory or anything beautiful or desirable. The second is the consequent of literary and artistic meaning, more broadly, that we are offered is (anubhava), the immediate and involuntary reaction to the stimulus, too narrow, at least for us today. Not all literature and art is emotive so in our example, this might involve glancing coyly or mouthing or expressive of (or portrays) emotions and other mental states, and sweet words. The third thing is the deliberate or conscious reaction some is in fact purely formalist; nor is expression of mental states (vyabhicaribhava), which in the case of erotic love might involve some the sole aim of literature and art.7 To be fair to Bharata, though, let of the thirty-three transient, complementary states as languor or us focus on drama, which after all is the main subject of the NS. Here suspicion or jealousy. Finally, there is the total effect of the durable again there is experimental, short drama that need not be emotive or psychological state (sthayibhava)—love in this case—which dominates expressive; one example might be Samuel Beckett’s 35-second work the other three even as all four together make up the relevant rasa, “Breath” which has no characters, but even if this example does not which in our example would be erotic love. work, there is no reason in principle why there could not be purely formalist, experimental theater that is not expressive or emotive. All literary meaning, Bharata tells us, involves some kind of emotion or sentiment, thus giving us an emotive theory of literary and, more Here is a different worry. If writers such as M. Hiriyanna are right,8 broadly, artistic meaning. Rasa, we are told, arises or emerges from a then pleasure is represented in Indian aesthetics as the sole aim of combination of the psychological states, amongst other things, just art. But such a view of art is clearly too narrow, for art may also have as taste in food is the result of combining various condiments and other aims such as educational or socio-political ones. The Indian ingredients. The analogy with food here need not entail a view of context itself provides examples: the ancient Indian epic poems The cooking as an art-form, but it is worth noting nevertheless that like Ramayana and The Mahabharata not only afford pleasure but also most Sanskrit words, the word rasa has multiple meanings, including often give insights into moral issues and human character and emo- (amongst others) juice, sap; liquid; taste, flavor, relish; condiment; tions.9 Indeed, even the NS (I.111-3) itself sees drama—conceived as an object of taste; taste or inclination for a thing, liking, desire; senti- imitating the actions and conduct of people—as instructive through ment; and essence.5 its depictions of actions and psychological states and through its giving rise to rasa. Pursuing the analogy with food further, the NS claims that just as well-disposed people can taste and enjoy food cooked with many To turn to a different doubt, the NS specifies many elaborate rules kinds of condiments, likewise a cultured person (rasika) can experience about drama, pertaining to such things as hand gestures, bodily and relish rasa, as a final state of satisfaction, when they see dramatic movements, gaits, rules of prosody and different kinds of language, representations and expressions of the various psychological states metrical patterns, diction, modes of address and intonation, kinds of accompanied by words, gestures, and the like; the appeal to cultured plays, costumes, make-up, styles, and so on. These are often accom- persons here is reminiscent, of course, of the Humean notion of ideal panied by many neat—perhaps too neat and artificial—classifications critics and also similar notions of ideal or competent observers often and sub-classifications, reflecting the ancient Indian excellence at and appealed to in Western aesthetics. Cultured persons are described in indeed obsession with such things. One might worry though (as in the the NS (XXVII. 50 ff.) as being impartial and sensitive; honest; alert; case of Aristotle’s similar pronouncements about drama in The Poetics) good at making inferences; capable of sympathizing with others; if such rules might be too rigid, stifling genuine and revolutionary imaginative; open-minded; knowledgeable about music, dance, act- creativity. To mention just one example, the NS (XIV.12) suggests that ing, dialects, grammar, prosody, customs, costumes, and make-up; dramatic characters are to enter and exit using the same door, and having a fine sense of the rasas and the psychological states; expert against this, one might wonder if an occasional variation might be at discussing pros and cons and at detecting faults and appreciating called for in some dramatic situations (such as a chase) or otherwise merits; and so on. It is conceded, however, that no one person is generate surprise. Sure, some rules may be needed for creativity, known to have all these qualities (much like Hume’s granting that it and great art is often created within the bounds of possibilities set is embarrassing to ask where true critics can be found). by such rules. But such rules are at best rules of thumb, and great artists (e.g. Amrita Shergil and M. F. Hussain in the Indian context, While the actors in drama portray various psychological states (bhava), as well as those such as Picasso, Joyce, Beckett, and Beethoven in the what cultured people experience when they taste and enjoy rasa is not the same mental state that is dramatically represented but instead an aesthetic emotion or flavor that is generalized from, and thus transcends, such particularities as character, situation, place, time
ASA Newsletter West) often master rules or current conventions only to break them are meant to be performed and, like all artworks, to be experienced and create revolutionary art. and appreciated appropriately, which in the case of Indian aesthetics involves savoring the dominant and other rasas in it, amongst other A different set of related criticisms concerns what Bharata says about things. This is perfectly compatible with Edwin Gerow’s claim12 many mental states and their dramatic representation. For example, that rasa is the end or purpose of the play, and organizes it; and it the comic and laughter are seen as inferior in the NS (VI.47-61), as in is compatible with Schwartz’s suggestion that the aim of dramatic the ancient Greeks, laughter of ridicule being associated with persons performance is that cultured persons experience and relish rasa.13 It of the so-called middling type, and vulgar and excessive laughter is worth noting here that on the ancient Indian conception of theater, with so-called inferior people. While there may be some concern, as drama is essentially a performing art, a visual spectacle; even though with the Greeks, that excessive laughter is uncontrollable and thus (as with theatrical performances during Shakespeare’s time) actual verboten, nevertheless Bharata seems not to appreciate sufficiently performances of ancient Indian plays did not use much painted that humor can help one bond with others and can also release both scenery or sets and instead used prose and poetry, gestures, plot, physical and psychological tension. Likewise, the NS (VII.14) claims characters etc. to conjure up the illusion of place and time. Merely (much like Plato) that sorrow relates to women and people of sup- reading a play silently as a literary work (as we might do today with posedly inferior types who weep in relation to it, in contrast to people Shakespeare or Ibsen or Tennessee Williams) was not seen as being of allegedly superior and middling types who are patient. Perhaps on par with actually performing a play; even if some Western writers there is an assumption here in Bharata that boys or at least real men such as Peter Kivy have argued recently that silently reading a play don’t cry, though we should certainly question how repressed and or a literary work is also a kind of performance.14 mentally unhealthy it is not to be in touch with and appropriately and moderately express one’s emotions, especially the negative ones Another plausible candidate for insight from the rasa theory is the such as sorrow. Similarly (as in Plato), fear is said by the NS (VII. 21 idea that the success of a performance of a play is determined by the ff.) to relate to women and supposedly inferior types. But, contra this, extent to which cultured audiences relish its dominant and subordi- one might wonder if moderate and appropriate fear might warn us nate rasas.15 However, does the cultured person have to be aroused about threats in the world and also tell us something about ourselves,10 to some kind of psychological state, which they must actually feel, to besides playing a role in developing our imaginations and survival taste and enjoy rasa? Or instead of full-fledged arousal, can it suffice skills. In like manner, the NS suggests (VII. 25) that disgust relates if the psychological state in question is merely contemplative and to women and supposedly inferior types. But here one must ask if called to mind? While the text of the NS (VI. 31-5) may suggest the we are not dealing with plain bias against women and the so-called former view, measured modern critics such as V. K. Chari opt for the inferior in a patriarchal culture that has also witnessed a lot of caste- latter.16 Chari suggests that mental states such as moods need not be related and other forms of oppression. For, after all, disgust gives rise evoked or produced in readers (or spectators), per the rasa theory, to revulsion, one of the eight rasas, as we are told in the NS (VI. 72). but rather the purpose of literary (and artistic) works is to present emotional situations so that the situation is called up in the reader’s One final worry for now. The NS makes associations between rasas or spectator’s mind in its fully imagined detail and is recognized as and colors (VI. 42-3); for example, erotic love is said to be light green the situation of a particular emotion. Rasas are thus made available (which may or may not signify fertility), comic laughter white, and to perception regardless of whether the corresponding emotions so on. For the most part, though, such connections seem without suf- are actually aroused in the reader or spectator. Also worth noting ficient justification; leaving aside such exceptions as fury being red, is the idea that to appreciate a play or an artwork appropriately, its presumably the basis of the association here being the color of blood experience must be relished or savored or enjoyed, the way suitably and also often of raging faces. Similarly, it is not always clear what the disposed diners enjoy food. Mere cold, cognitive appreciation of a rationale is behind the NS (XIX.38-40) associating the seven different play or an artwork will not suffice. musical notes of the scale with the rasas when it comes to recitation; or when it comes to songs using stringed instruments (XXIX.1-16). Yet another thing we might learn from the rasa theory is the idea that aesthetic enjoyment is the highest experience of life and is a kind of 3. Learning from Indian Aesthetics? contemplative feeling that is higher than ordinary feelings such as sympathy, for it is a universalized feeling not tied down to the par- So, are there any insights for us today in the rasa theory? Here are ticularities it transcends. K. C. Bhattacharya puts the point well when some possible lessons from classical Indian aesthetics; and while I he uses the example of a child playing with a toy, her grandfather do not have space here to develop these at length, I hope to do so on affectionately watching the child, and my enjoying contemplating a different occasion. the scene.17 While the child’s feeling is primary, the grandfather’s feeling is sympathetic, and my feeling is contemplative. Also, while Does the rasa theory entail that some sense dramatic works, and the grandfather’s feeling has a personal interest in this particular artworks generally, are not complete until a competent audience ex- child and her play, my contemplative feeling is not personal but is periences and interprets them in a fully absorbed way, thereby tasting rather generalized as I enjoy the pure essence of the feeling,18 as a and relishing the rasas in them? While such a view may be compatible universalized feeling stripped of its particularities, as an impersonal with the kind of performativism urged by Richard Shusterman,11 it is feeling as I contemplate with relish the very idea of a grandparent ontologically problematic on its own. For all sorts of plays may exist (or any human being for that matter) sympathetically delighting in undiscovered as complete scripts and be discovered later in time in a child’s play. a forgotten cellar, but we would not say that a recently discovered Kalidasa (an ancient Indian playwright) or Shakespeare or Ibsen or A different valuable lesson from the rasa theory is the idea that the Tennessee Williams play is incomplete solely because it has not yet been cultured person can lose herself in the artwork, identifying herself performed and appreciated appropriately by cultured persons. with it and losing her sense of self-consciousness as rasa fills her. However, this need not involve believing with Kathleen Higgins (fol- However, the thought that a play is not fully realized until experienced lowing Abhinavagupta)19 that the cultured person must be spiritually appropriately by a competent audience has more promise and may prepared per traditional Hindu philosophical and religious ideas, well be the greatest insight in the rasa theory, assuming that plays involving transcending the supposedly illusory ordinary, empirical
SPRING 2013 self to realize that one’s true self, Atman, is identical with Brahman, Motilal Banarsidass, 2000), 465. the ground of all things that is ultimate reality. For one can immerse oneself fully in an artwork and lose one’s sense of self in it without 6. Eliot Deutsch, “Reflections on Some Aspects of the Theory of Rasa”, believing in or appealing to such Hindu notions; this is possible not in Rachel van Baumer & James Brandon (eds.), Sanskrit Drama in just for those in the West outside the Indian tradition, but even for Performance (University of Hawaii Press, 1981), 215-6. Chari, op. cit., those within the Indian philosophical tradition who reject Hindu 19 similarly suggests that rasa is both the relish enjoyed by spectators philosophies and instead embrace heterodox non-Hindu ideas such and also the relishable quality manifested by the work. as those of the atheist, materialist Carvaka school of Indian philoso- phy. Indeed, there is no reason in principle why a Carvaka or some- 7. Cf. Chari, op. cit., 29; and 251 where it is suggested that the rasa one grounded in Western traditions could not be a cultured person theory might too narrowly exclude such literary works as discursive (rasika) in the sense the rasa theory has in mind. There is a notion essays and biographies. of transcendence, to be sure, in the rasa theory, but this need not be understood in traditional Hindu terms, as spiritually transcending 8. M. Hiriyanna, “Art Experience 2”, in Nalini Bhushan & Jay Garfield the mundane to realize unity with Brahman. Instead, the relevant no- (eds.), Indian Philosophy in English (OUP, 2011), 222. tion of transcendence could just be understood, as discussed above, as transcending the particularities (characters, situation, place, time 9. Cf. Chari, op. cit, 32. etc.) of the emotion theatrically presented, as the cultured person savors a contemplative feeling, consisting of a generalized aesthetic 10. Compare similar claims made about the emotions in general in emotion; as Lewis Rowell puts it, rasa is “…an awareness that rises Ronald de Sousa, Emotional Truth (OUP, 2011). above the circumstances which awakened it.”20 11. Richard Shusterman, “The Logic of Interpretation”, Philosophical A final lesson may be that even though poetry and the arts in general Quarterly 28 (1978), 316-8. are emotive discourse according to the rasa theory, a lot of thinking or intellection is involved in emotional expression; as Chari puts it, 12. Edwin Gerow, “Rasa as a Category of Literary Criticism”, in Baumer the alleged opposition between thought and emotion is a miscon- & Brandon, op. cit., 230-1. For a nice overview of Indian aesthetics, ception.21 see Gerow’s “Indian Aesthetics”, in Eliot Deutsch & Ron Bontekoe (eds.), A Companion to World Philosophies (Blackwell, 1999). 4. Conclusion 13. Schwartz, op. cit., 97. Cf. Chari, op. cit., 12; 39-40.
I hope to have shown through the case of Indian aesthetics that it 14. Peter Kivy, The Performance of Reading (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008). is not completely insane—as some readers might think—to engage with non-Western art and aesthetics. While there are both similarities 15. Cf. Adya Rangacharya, Introduction to Bharata’s Natyasastra (New and dissimilarities between Western and non-Western aesthetics, a Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2005), 81. careful look should reveal that non-Western aesthetics, evaluated on its own merits, has its own insights. Harking back to the quote 16. Chari, op. cit., 46; 227. from Noël Carroll at the start of this essay, in this age of globaliza- tion (when some are talking of the decline of the West and the rise of 17. K. C. Bhattacharya, “The Concept of Rasa”, in Nalini Bhushan the rest), readers would do well to explore similarly the aesthetics of & Jay Garfield, op. cit., 198-200. See also M. Hiriyanna’s “Indian various non-Western cultures, which are, for lack of knowing better, Aesthetics 2” in the same volume, 210-2. sadly too often simply lumped together under the generic category of “non-Western aesthetics,” without paying due attention to the 18. As Schwartz, op. cit., 52 puts it rasa is the refined essence of differences between, say, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Islamic, and emotions. African aesthetics.22 19. Kathleen Higgins, “Comparative Aesthetics”, in Jerrold Levinson Notes (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics (OUP, 2003), 681.
1. Noël Carroll, “Living in an Artworld”, American Society for Aesthetics 20. Lewis Rowell, Music and Musical Thought in Early India (University Newsletter, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Spring 2012), 3. of Chicago Press, 1992), 328.
2. Some translations of this ancient text are: Manomohan Ghosh (trans.), 21. Chari, op. cit., 72-3. Natyasastra, 2 vols. (Varanasi: Chowkhamba Press, 2007); also Adya Rangacharya (trans.), Natyasastra (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal 22. Thanks to Noël Carroll and esp. Roy Perrett for helpful inputs. Publishers, 2010); and Pushpendra Kumar (trans.), Natyasastra, 4 vols. (Delhi: New Bharatiya Book Corporation, 2010).
3. Cf. V. K. Chari’s excellent Sanskrit Criticism (University of Hawaii Press, 1990), 6-11.
4. Susan Schwartz, Rasa (Columbia University Press, 2004), 1-3; 14- 20.
5. See V. S. Apte, The Student’s Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Delhi:
ASA Newsletter between the aesthetic subject and object in a manner that is analyti- Contemporary Philosophi- cally richer than “aesthetic experience.”2
The process of aesthetic ganxing has three stages: aesthetic prepara- cal Aesthetics in China: A tion, aesthetic response and aesthetic extension.3 The stage of aesthetic preparation includes aesthetic attention and aesthetic expectation. The result of this stage is an orientation system or a psychological attitude Re-Reading of the Aesthetics toward the object. With aesthetic attention, the interest and attitude of the subject is attracted by the mode, style and content of the object, Notion of Ganxing which anticipates an immediate aesthetic experience. The authors borrowed Roman Ingarden’s term “anxious desire” to describe this state.4 We note that in this initial stage, the subject is disinterested. The aesthetic response includes aesthetic perception, imagination and Eva Kit Wah Man insight. Aesthetic perception is regarded as the ground of aesthetic Hong Kong Baptist University response in which the perceived data has formed a “gestalt” of the schema or integrated image, which also constitutes its preparation as an aesthetic object. We note that the perceiving subject is not passive, 1. Modern Aesthetics System and the Notion of Ganxing for one conducts the selection of data according to one’s inclination and aesthetic feelings. The response is read as the result of both the It is said that aestheticians today, including art critics and philoso- physical properties of the object and the attitudes of the subject. The phers, yearn for a return to aesthetic experience, which would act as former may be the material, volume, color, sound, speed, toughness a foundation enabling resistance to pure discursive reflection and or luster of the object that form what is called an “energy entity” to intertextuality. These debates, concerning ontologically based norms, be appropriated by the perceiving subject. Out of this arise the feel- are among the most important in contemporary Western aesthetics. Yet ings of a “corresponding structure” between the physical field of the the same concern is shared by a younger generation of aestheticians in subject and the “energy entity” of the object. Socialist China in the 1990s. The so-called “aesthetic Ganxing,” a term suggested to replace the old term “aesthetic experience,” has become The aesthetic imagination that follows aesthetic perception claims to the central concept of an aesthetic system these scholars are developing. allow more freedom. While the form of perceptual image is usually The new development reveals issues concerning subjective autonomy formed according to the physical properties of the object, imagination and the social context in contemporary Chinese aesthetics. acts on it, reorganizes and reformulates it in arbitrary and creative ways corresponding to the attitudes of the subject. As a result, an The new system of aesthetics was first developed in a book entitled aesthetic image is formed, which is the art itself—and called “aesthetic 5 Modern Aesthetics System edited by Ye Lang, the leading aesthetician at insight.” One can see here that the final stage of aestheticganxing is Beijing University, and was published in 1988. The book was written the aesthetic extension. The authors describe this stage as an “aesthetic collectively by a group of young aestheticians, aimed to form a basic aftertaste” in which the subject is more relaxed and reflects on and textbook for colleges and readers nationwide introducing aesthetic enjoys the aesthetic images thus formed. theories using a new aesthetics model. The book sought to describe the system at its present stage of development with the understanding The proposed new system conducts qualitative analyses and defines that it was part of a long-term research effort to construct a new form the five natures of aesthetic ganxing as disinterestedness, intuitive- 6 of aesthetics in China. The agenda is to manifest the four construct- ness, creativity, transcendence and pleasantness. Disinterestedness ing principles: acting as a dialogue of traditional and contemporary is said to be the nature of the aesthetic attitude when the subject is aesthetics, acting as the merger of Chinese and Western aesthetics, attracted by the aesthetic values of the object and succeeds in hold- integrating aesthetics with related studies, and enhancing the ad- ing an appropriate psychic distance with it, enabling the subject to vancement of both theoretical and applied aesthetics.1 be free from practical considerations. (This reminds one of Edward Bullough’s theory of distancing which was introduced to China and One can note the overall Marxist tone both in its basic structure and translated by Zhu Guangqin in the 1930s). Intuitiveness happens intention. An examination of the core notion of the system will enable when the subject contemplates the sensuous form of the object and us to better understand this trend of contemporary aesthetics in China, formulates an aesthetic image via imagination. This is a process of which deals with issues of autonomy and social context. intuition in which the fullness and the richness of the object is grasped and created. Creativity is the aesthetic activity of the subject’s imagina- 2. Analysis of the Aesthetic Notion Ganxing tion, which has gone beyond the discovery process of the object and works on the schema perceived. At this stage, the subject “invents” Modern Aesthetics System offers what the authors describe as the “se- an image. We note that authors of Modern Aesthetics System have used mantic anatomy” of the term “ganxing” and a description of its process. the concept of constitution suggested by Ernst Cassirer and that of The term is intended to replace the older terms “aesthetic experience” “intentionality structure” in phenomenology to explicate the crea- or “aesthetic consciousness.” Their claim is that ganxing represents a tivity concerned. They emphasize the confinement presented by the more realistic picture of the processes of aesthetic psychology. This physical form of the object in relation to the freedom of imagination. claim reflects the scientific and psychological inclinations of young Transcendence, again, refers to the creativity of aesthetic imagination, Chinese aestheticians, which are clearly under the epistemological which enables the subject to transcend the physical conditions of the influences of the new Marxist regime. The term “ganxing” is used object. Finally, pleasantness is the freedom and resonance gained from in traditional Chinese aesthetics. “Gan” means the perception of an object and “xing” means the subject’s response to the perception. In the contemporary appropriation of the term, it refers to an interplay
SPRING 2013 the corresponding structure formed during aesthetic perception and Modern Aesthetics System sounds at times objectivist and at times the creative responses in the process of imagination. subjectivist.
While the authors use descriptive terminologies in Chinese that are The authors’ relationship to Marxism is also difficult to settle. At usually applied to the realm of the metaphysical Dao or Nature in one time they try to solve the old aesthetic problem regarding the traditional Chinese aesthetics, they are, in fact, referring to a Western subject and object dichotomy and draw support from traditional mode of subject and object duality. The discourse is different from that Chinese aesthetics, at the same time they keep Marxist thesis of the in traditional Chinese aesthetics, which present aesthetic process as a separate spheres of subject and object and stress on the function of stage before the differentiation of the subject and the object and which the object, as they claim that their new proposal is “fundamentally happens in the realm of the Dao with subjective engagement. Marxist and unique.” They may have appropriated many ideas from classical Chinese aesthetics into the notion of ganxing and describe the 3. A Review of A New Proposal in Contemporary Chinese Aes- spiritual response of the subject, but there is no further explication nor thetics discussion on the possible merge of the classical Chinese aesthetics and Marxist aesthetics in this modern proposal. What the authors claim to achieve from their notion of aesthetic ganxing is to avoid old problems in the history of Western aesthetics. 4. The Deweyan Influence in Contemporary China They say that in the past, the subject and object dichotomy and the objective observation model have created problematic discussion One important reference and scheme that is waiting to be mentioned is of the origin of beauty. The old question remains: “Is beauty in the the strong Deweyan fervors in the notion of ganxing. It should not be subject or in the object?” Here they quote Marx’s criticism of old a surprise that John Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy has also become a materialisms, which understand objects or reality from an objective strong influence on young aestheticians in China. Since Dewey’s visit and static point of view, instead of understanding them in the form to China in the 1920s, he has gained popularity for his philosophy of the practical activity of human beings.7 and education ethos except during the eras of the cultural revolution. His works are translated in numerous Chinese versions, including The authors have also drawn on Western theories of empathy, espe- Art as Experience, his representative work in aesthetics. The work is cially the ideas of Theodore Lipps, which has also been introduced still frequently discussed and debated in China in the 2000s. In the to and translated in China by Zhu Guangqin in the 1930s. Lipps’s heat of the revival of Chinese traditional thoughts, guoxue, under theory is read as “a dissolution of the separation of subject and object” the promotion of neo-nationalism stressed by the party leaders of which is identified as the aim of the Modern Aesthetics System.8 This the PRC today, it will be interesting to see how the Deweyan model orientation is also recognized as being part of what they call “Western is incorporated into new Chinese aesthetics. experiential philosophies” and their aesthetics. The term includes the various phenomenological positions of Husserl, Heidegger and Both models state the relation of art and value and trace it down Gadamer. Husserl’s notions of intentionality and phenomenologi- to what happens in the aesthetic experience. The Deweyan model cal reduction, Heidegger’s “Dasein” and Gadamer’s “Erlebnis” are represents a belief in the biological and natural needs of a human all evoked as descriptions of the intentional structure they suggest subject, regarding aesthetic experience as an intense, direct, immediate in which subject and object are integrated. They also claim that the and integrated manifestation of the interaction of humans and the aesthetic structure suggested resembles that of Classical Chinese natural living environment. Dewey has also recognized a sense of aesthetics.9 Finally, to ensure that their theory is all encompassing, happiness as the product of the subject’s physical adjustment, leading the authors also insist that the basic tone is Marxism. to an experience with a satisfying emotional quality, for “it possesses internal integration and fulfillment reached through ordered and It is the attempt to hold such disparate theories together that becomes organized movement.”12 The fulfillment refers to a feeling that things problematic. They have to have it both ways: on the one hand insist are “just so,” and that is the rightness and coherence manifested in on a full integration of the subject and the object, on the other, hold art. Hence, the aesthetic experience is described as the live experi- a separation of subject and object in order to ensure the objective, ence of the value of human beings, referring to the equilibrium and material status of the object and to avoid being accused of falling prey the harmony attained in the interaction and the adjustment, which to Western idealism.10 This tension appears from time to time when is so “delightful.” It is interesting to see the similarities and parallel they adopt a philosopher’s notion and then criticize it. For example, readings between Dewey’s notion of “art as experience” and the after drawing on Lipps’s notion of empathy as a model of subject five natures of aesthetic ganxing as disinterestedness, intuitiveness, and object integration, they then criticize it as over-emphasizing on creativity, transcendence and pleasantness. the objectification of the subject leading to the conclusion that beauty is in the subject.11 One can also detect the harmonious state in the aesthetic experience in traditional Chinese aesthetics, yet the differences between them One question one might ask at this point is: how new is this notion are both epistemological and metaphysical. The Daoist, for instance, of aesthetic ganxing? As pointed out, the problem with aesthetic emphasizes that the achievement of this state requires effort of tran- ganxing is its attempt to combine and position itself amongst diverse scendence of all human epistemological constraints. The more clear and conflicting philosophical positions. The attempt swings among and tranquil is the human mind, the more it is able to know, in the Marxism, classical Chinese philosophies, Western theories of empathy, light of the tranquil state, that things will present themselves in the phenomenologies and psychologies etc. Such a diverse and confused way that they are, not as an object, but as an ideal state, which is also combination produces ambiguities and contradictions. On the one a “just so.” While the “just so” or the rightness described by Dewey hand they emphasize a physical correspondence structure between refers to the successful adjustment between the subject and the living the subject and the object, taking it as the ground of aesthetic proc- environment, the “just so” in traditional Chinese aesthetics results ess, on the other, they rely heavily on the faculty of imagination that in an ontological manifestation of things under the light of the hu- transcends the physicality of the object. This results in what they call man mind, which can see things-in-themselves when it is engaged a “resembling or not” correspondence relation. Finding the balance with metaphysical Nature and Heaven. The happiness or delight in between objectivist and subjectivist positions is the core challenge. the Deweyan sense, if based on a biological dimension, should be
ASA Newsletter different from that being at the spiritual level or in the light of the wisdom implied in the traditional Chinese aesthetics. The former is Japanese Aesthetics lacking of the depth in the meaning of ultimate concern with what things and their values should be. In brief, successful environmental Carol Steinberg Gould, Florida Atlantic University adjustment is not equal to a completion of essential manifestation Mara Miller, Independent Scholar in their inputs to an answer related to art and value, though both claims are debatable. Editor’s Note: Carol Steinberg Gould and Mara Miller collaborated on this article, which is presented in alternating sections by each author, as One can describe the traditional Chinese aesthetics (the Daoist espe- indicated. Additional images are available in the online version (see the cially) as the “ontological aesthetics of the realm of the Dao,” which ASA website). has its own problems to solve, as it has to answer the problems of the art world, the mediation process, and artistic knowledge, for On Being Drawn to Japanese Aesthetics—CSG example. Yet it is clear that contemporary Chinese aestheticians in the PRC have not advocated ontological aesthetics in the faithful Like many Anglophone Western-trained philosophers, I had only the sense, which one may say is an aftermath of Marxist influences. They vaguest idea of Japanese aesthetic principles, let alone their complex- are more enthusiastic in re-exploring the Western aesthetics and the ity. I associated Japanese aesthetics with appealing things like the Deweyan aesthetics, digging down in them and finding things that minimalist architecture and concise interiors filled with negative would fit with their newly proposed aesthetic notions like ganx- space, the fashion-forward, edgy couture that I encountered in the ing. If the end of aesthetic experience has now become a common sensual origami of an Issey Miyake skirt, and a meticulously assem- concern, linked with the worry that people are losing the capacity bled plate, colored with slices of sushi. In contrast to this elegance, I for deep experience and feeling in the contemporary age of living, also noticed the ubiquitous Hello Kitty and more cloying tokens of an aesthetics that is concerned with and has the belief in the capac- kawaii (cuteness), such as the disturbing Lolita fashion subculture. ity and the potentiality of the human mind may provide a way to What is important here is that all of these turn up in everyday life, reflect on the reconstruction of the experience. Chinese aesthetics in which the Japanese see as worthy of aesthetic appreciation. The the contemporary scene has more concerns to add on, which is the principles of Japanese aesthetics also govern persons, their bearing, reflection on the differences and the possible integration between its their actions, their erotic nature, and their interactions with others. traditional aesthetics and Western aesthetics, and the application of Although the principles are too numerous to probe here, even this its new aesthetical thoughts to its rapidly developing art scenes and brief discussion shows how they enrich life and art in the West, as social living environment.13 well as in contemporary Japan.
Many roads would lead me to Japanese aesthetics, which is ancient Notes and fascinating, even as it continues to transform with the cross- fertilization of Western and Japanese traditions. First, it was French 1. Ye, Lang. (ed). Modern Aesthetics System (Peking: Peking University modernism, which I would discuss often with a colleague in French at Press, 1988), 2. Florida Atlantic University, Professor Jan Hokenson. The story could begin in various places at different moments, but one legendary, if 2. Ibid., 167-171. not mythic, moment is when Hokusai prints turned up in Paris c. 1856. When some of the avant-garde artists such as Manet, Whistler, 3. Ibid., 171-202. and Degas saw these Japanese prints, they saw new escape routes from the classical ideals of verisimilitude, symmetry, balance, per- 4. Ibid., 173-174, spective and shadow, and the integrity of space. Thus in their works we see them use some of the Japanese standards of highly saturated 5. Ibid., 188. color, spare use of line, asymmetry, irregularity, simplicity, and most importantly for the direction of Western painting, the flattening of 6. Ibid., 202-238. the picture space. This led to the birth of Japonisme in France, a term coined in the late nineteenth century. As more Japanese artifacts 7. Ibid., 529. and artworks appeared in the West, the interest in Japanese art and trinkets ignited, exemplified in the writings of Proust and Huysmans, 8. Ibid., 542. the music of Satie and Debussy, and of course in the work of the painters who would explicitly depict figures in Japanese clothes or 9. Ibid., 565. interiors cluttered with Japanese artifacts. Almost certainly, Courbet’s L’Origine du monde (1866) reflects the prominent genitalia depicted in 10. Ibid., 541. much Japanese erotica. Artists were keen to look at more ukiyo-e, as more became available and by artists in addition to Hokusai, such 11. Ibid., 546. as Utamaro and Hiroshige (see illustration, next page. Consider, for instance, Van Gogh’s La Courtisane (1887) or Monet’s Madame Monet 12. Dewey, J. Art as Experience (New York.: Perigee Books, 1980), 35. in a Japanese Costume (1875). These prints emerged in the Edo period in the urban pleasure-seeking culture, or what was called “the float- 13. This article is a revised version of “Contemporary Philosophi- ing world (ukiyo), ” an ancient Buddhist term suggesting a world of cal Aesthetics in China: The Relation between Subject and Object,” transitory pleasures and pain and the flux of existence. Philosophy Compass 7 (2012): 164-173. We could say that globalization has given rise to a new Japonisme in the West. Film enthusiasts flock to anime and new Japanese cinema; Japanese cosmetic lines command substantial prices in high-end shops and spas. Interior designers are crazy about Zen décor. Japa-
SPRING 2013 nese architects attract international attention: Toyo Ito is yet another new comes along. New and old coexist—partly due to intrinsic values, Japanese awarded the lofty Pritzker Architecture Prize (2013). The partly because the systems for paying for the arts and for training new exclusive line of Louis Vuitton has collaborated with two Japanese artists are essentially conservative, passing on traditions as themselves artists: Takashi Murakami, who designed the now-discontinued highly valuable. While Europe and America repeatedly found new cherry blossom pattern, and Yayoi Kusama, who designed a line uses for Greek architectural and literary aesthetics—which had been using irregularly sized and placed dots. Sushi shops appear in all appropriated by Romans, then re-introduced in the Renaissance, Western cities, and miso soup has become the chicken soup of the utilized again in the 18th century and after, their uses of their tradi- twenty-first century. tional arts selective and discontinuous. Also, as the Japanese keep reinterpreting their aesthetic pleasures, so the reasons for continuing Some Thoughts for Comparative Aesthetics—MM these traditions vary accordingly.
Few cultures have thought and written more or for longer about Japan has the longest history of women’s voices occupying the literary aesthetics than the Japanese (Tsunoda et al.’s two-volume Sources of mainstream of any literate culture. The apex was the Heian period Japanese Traditions anthology contains an aesthetics section for each (794-1185), with Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji, Sei Shōnagon’s Pil- period). The sheer number of aesthetic concepts was very large, and low Book, and a hundred other female poets and diarists (Miller 2013), their variety greater yet. (Concepts like wabi have multiple interpreta- whose works were some of the first printed when mass printing for tions.) They continue to proliferate: superflat, kawaii, (cute; Borgreen the middle class began (by 1604). The influence of women began 2011, Hasegawa 2002; Yano 2013); “pink” (pinku), iyashi (a sense in prehistory, when women were sometimes rulers, and were the of comfort, a peaceful tranquil state of mind); the fascination with transmitters of the earliest oral traditions later written down. One contemporary ruins (haikyo, “abandoned places”) (Katsuno 2013); fascinating study of selfhood is Yoda’s study of Heian-era women’s what I call “radical traditionalism” of contemporary artists’ return diaries (Yoda 2004) and their contribution to the articulation of the to Neolithic methods and/or materials; moe (a euphoric response to modern self, (Suzuki 1996, Washburn 1995). Philosopher Motoori fantasy characters or representations of them (Galbraith 2009). Norinaga (1730-1801) argued the aesthetic concept of aware that was elaborated in Genji held the key to ethics. Along with translated Japanese arts and aesthetics operate differently than Western in that novels by Natsuo Kirino, Fumiko Enchi, and Sadako Ariyoshi, Japa- there is a tendency not to abandon older aesthetics when something nese women today write in English, too: Kyoko Mori‘s Yarn, Hiromi Kawakami’s Manazuru.
The importance of the female Gaze also originated in prehistory; Japan has the only tradition of pre-agricultural pottery, the Jōmon works made by women, who continue to influence ceramics Shigaraki( Ceramic Art, 2007). It continues today in the ways women’s voices and Gaze appear in film, even if directed by men (Mizoguchi, Ozu, Itami, Kei Kumai), even Kurosawa, whose innovative integration of the woman’s point of view of her rape in Rashomon contributed to that word’s vernacular use in English. (The 2010 Honolulu International Film Festival premiered Hisako Matsui’s Leonie, about Isamu Noguchi’s mother.) Yayoi Kusano, Yoko Ono, Reiko Mochinaga Brandon, Kazue Sawai and other Japanese women played prominent roles in the New York visual, musical, and theatrical avant-garde during the 1960’s and after (Munroe 1994).
Zen Buddhism and Japanese Aesthetics—CSG
My next route to Japanese aesthetics was through a friend and scholar of Zen Buddhism, Professor Steve Heine, internationally distinguished for his work on Dōgen, a thirteenth century Japanese Buddhist monk. Steve accepted an invitation to speak to the students in my Japanese Aesthetics class. He explained to the students that Dōgen made am- ple use of poetry, but maligned it frequently. As a Plato specialist, I was curious as to whether it was a coincidence that Plato presents the same paradox. Here were two thinkers, who appeared to have nothing in common except a paradoxical belief about poetry. I set out to understand why, which resulted in an APA paper and then an article in Japan Studies Review, and most of all, my enduring interest in Japan and Zen Buddhism.
By looking at Dōgen in relation to Plato, one grasps how Japanese philosophy, particularly, Japanese aesthetics, illuminates the Japa- Beauty & Snowfall. Okamoto Kōen (1895-?). Japan, late Taishō period, ca. nese emphasis on everyday life and the ethos of respect evident in 1914 – 1920. Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk and gold foil on the traditional Japanese manners. This is the same respect the Japanese reverse. The painting, by a nationally recognized female artist, exemplifies the poignancy of the contested—and contesting—female gaze in the early people displayed in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami when displaced 20th century as Japan was “Westernizing.” The landscapes patterning her people living in shelters did not encroach on one another’s personal kimono are faithful representations of wood-block prints from Hiroshige’s space and dignity, kept their own spaces tidy, and cooperated with 1833-34 Tokaidō series. Collection of Lee Michels. Published with permis- sion. Photograph by Mara Miller. authorities. This attitude and their aesthetic appreciation of the eve-
ASA Newsletter ryday is embedded in their Buddhist tradition, as is an appreciation ations and motivations of some of the loftiest-seeming poets and and regard for nature and the aesthetic of being human. diarists (Faure 1996; Huey 2002; LaFleur 2003; Marra 1991, 1993). The loftiness seems transcendent because it is interpreted from a Western The contrast between the two canonical figures, Dōgen and Plato, perspective, but the split between the profane and the religious, the helps one see Zen Buddhism anew. Plato and Dōgen agree that natural “things that are Ceasar’s …and the things that are God’s” comes out language is misleading in that its terms refer to only fleeting sensory of the Judaeo-Christian and Platonic traditions; it is not Japanese. entities that violate the law of identity. The referents of terms in natural (Inaga’s 2010 anthology offers a number of jumping-off points useful language are Heraclitean. Both thinkers insist that enlightenment (or to philosophers.) wisdom) begins by grasping the imprecision of ordinary language. For Plato, however, natural language conceals an elegant ideal language, The plethora of new contributions since Miller’s 1996 ASA Newslet- the terms of which refer to transcendent entities. The philosopher on ter article on teaching Japanese aesthetics is exciting. Michele (aka a path to enlightenment aspires to understand these Forms, which Michael) Marra edited several books of essays on hermeneutics and requires her to disengage from others—which she does happily--and philosophical aesthetics (Marra 1999, 2001, 2002), making recent and from the inconveniences of everyday life to which she is tethered by contemporary Japanese philosophers easily accessible. Alfred Haft has the body and senses. A philosopher finds beauty in the enduring a new work on three popular new aesthetic concepts in the “Floating transcendent Forms. World” pictured in Ukiyo-e prints (Haft 2013). Timon Screech (1996) explored the impact of the scientific gaze learned from the West on For Dōgen, natural language is messy, but conceals nothing beyond this same world, while David Bell (2007) examined “The Articula- perception. The problem is that identity of self or any other thing is tion of Pictorial Space” in Hokusai’s prints. Robert E. Carter (2008) illusory. Because it is fraught with ambiguity, language is ideal for addressed the implications of art as process for the development of poetry. Poetry can capture a poet’s aperçue, but once it is uttered or the person/self. Alan Tansman tackled the thorny relations between written, its meaning has already vanished. Moreover, the poet has aesthetics and Japanese fascism (Tansman 2009), relating it to theories vanished, for the self is like any other thing—transitory, ephemeral, of Western fascism—an issue that has also been raised in regard to and thus, personal continuity is an illusion. The self, conscious but Kuki Shūzō’s aesthetics of iki (Nara 2004; Pincus c. 1966; Tansman not privileged by consciousness, is like everything else that exists. 2010). Japanese architecture and design had an enormous effect on Zen Buddhism admits no hierarchy of being. Hierarchies are illu- Modernism. Dominic Lopez’s 2007 study of Ise contrasts Western sion. For Dōgen, there is no difference between a nobleman and a and Japanese ontologies of architecture, and their implications for snail or a CEO and a twig. Zazen (sitting meditation) is the path to cross-cultural studies. Sherry Fowler’s and Greg Levine’s studies enlightenment--grasping that our ordinary experiences are illusory of two temples and their relations to their artworks and their sites because they bury reality beneath strata of concepts. Zazen discloses develop issues that are understood quite differently in their native the futility of desire, thus releasing the self from the illusion of ego. context than Western philosophers are used to (reviewed in JAAC Miller 2010). Jacquet and Giraud’s new anthology From the Things Zen Buddhism is at the heart of what many—notably, Donald Keene— Themselves: Architecture and Phenomenology (officially 2012, but just consider distinctive to the Japanese aesthetic: suggestiveness, irregular- released) carries a number of Japan-related articles. ity, asymmetry, simplicity, and perishability. The first three qualities pique the imagination, while emphasizing the individual unique- Aesthetics of the Person—CSG ness of each thing and non-existence of fixed essences. Simplicity allows us to appreciate the quality and craftsmanship of something, Since the time of Lady Murasaki, Japanese culture has focused on the grace of a gesture. The last, perishability, is key for evoking the aesthetic properties of persons as much as on artworks. Just as a poem aesthetic experience, for it includes an element of sadness at the brev- or hand-wrought bowl should suggest rather than state, so a woman ity of things. The cherry blossom, so iconic in Japanese life and art, should suggest refinement and imagination by the fabric of her dress blooms for just a few days. Thus, the Japanese will be as sensitive as it falls around her, for example, and a man by the language he uses to the buds and to the fallen (or falling) petals as to the flowers in in communicating with a love interest. An insensitive, coarse gesture full bloom, both of which are suggestive and irregular. Clearly, the can erase the beauty one might have seen in a person’s form or face. perishability of cherry blossoms makes us aware of our own perish- A person’s elegance, manners, sensitivity, attunement to nature, to ability, our own death. art, and to other people, one’s careful way of performing the most insignificant daily acts or of expressing a mundane thought can arouse The reality of change and difference allows us to understand the Japa- both aesthetic and erotic experiences. The philosopher Kuki Shuzo, nese notion of a we-self, in contrast to the atomic, individualistic self who studied with Husserl and met Heidegger, Bergson, and Sartre, of Westerners. This makes it quite natural that the Japanese artistic in The Structure of Iki (1929) analyzed ‘iki’ as a distinctively Japanese tradition has not excluded women, as Mara notes. characteristic. ‘Iki’ means something like ‘chic,’ ‘flirtatious,’ or remi- niscent of an earlier meaning, ‘detached.’ He discusses persons and Thoughts on Recent Developments in the Field—MM relationships as ‘iki.’ and so extends a concept applied to artworks to persons. We are past the point where Japanese aesthetics can be understood as eternal and unchanging, participating somehow in a pure realm Bibliography beyond politics. They were born in a period when the cultures did not have as much knowledge of each other, and the needs of both Bell, David. Hokusai’s project: The articulation of pictorial space. 2007. were different (and what we could all get away with was very differ- ent). Such constructions, familiar from Okakura Kakuzo’s The Book of Borggreen, Gunhild. “Cute and Cool in Contemporary Japanese Visual Tea, Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows, and D. T. Suzuki’s Zen Arts.” Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. 29, No. 1, 2011. and Japanese Arts, and so beloved of undergraduates, are now recog- nized as ideologically motivated—on both Japanese and American/ Blocker, Gene H. and Christopher I. Starling, Japanese Philosophy. European sides—and as having political effects. Japanese literature specialists and art historians have demonstrated the politicized situ-
SPRING 2013 SUNY Press, 2001. Medieval Japanese Literature. 1991.
Cheok, Adrain David. “Kawaii: Cute Interactive Media.” In Imagery Marra, Michele. Modern Japanese Aesthetics: A Reader. University of in the 21st Century. Oliver Grau, ed. 2011. Hawaii Press. 1999.
Faure, Bernard. Visions of Power: Imagining Medieval Japanese Bud- Marra, Michele. Representations of Power: The Literary Politics of Me- dhism. 1996. dieval Japan. 1993.
Galbraith, Patrick W. “Moe: Exploring Virtual Potential in Post- Miller, Mara. “Early Feminist Aesthetics in Japan: Murasaki Shikibu, Millennial Japan.” Electronic journal of contemporary Japanese studies. Sei Shonagon, and A Thousand Years of the Female Voice,” Ryan Article 5 2009.
Hasegawa, Yuko. “Post-Identity Kawaii: Commerce, Gender and Mitsukuni, Yoshida, Tanaka Ikko, and Sesoko Tsune, eds. Tsukuru: Contemporary Japanese Art.” In Consuming Bodies: Sex and Con- Aesthetics at Work. 1990. temporary Japanese Art. Fran Lloyd, ed. 2002. Munroe, Alexandra. Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky. Heine, Steven. Shifting Shape, Shaping Text: Philosophy and Folklore in 1994. the Fox Koan. 1999. Nara Hiroshi. The Structure of Detachment: The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Heine, Steven. White Collar Zen. 2005. Shuzo, with a translation of Iki no Kōzō. 2004.
Heine, Steven. Did Dōgen go to China? What He Wrote and When He Nguyen, Minh. New Essays in Japanese Aesthetics. Rowman and Lit- Wrote It. 2006. tlefield, 2013 or 2014.
Heine, Steven. The Koan: Metaphor and Meaning. forthcoming. Pincus, Leslie. Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan: Kuki Shuzo and the Rise of National Aesthetics. 1966. Huey, Robert N. The Making of Shinkokinshū. 2002. Saito, Yuriko. Everyday Aesthetics. Oxford and New York: Oxford Hume, Nancy (ed.). Japanese Aesthetics and Culture: A Reader. 1995. University Press, 2007.
Inaga Shigemi. Questioning Oriental Aesthetics and Thinking: Conflicting Sakamoto, Dean, Karla Britton and Diana Murphy. Hawaiian Modern: Visions of “Asia” under the Colonial Empires. 2010. The Architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff. 2007.
Jacquet, Benoît and Vincent Giraud, Eds. From the Things Themselves: Shigaraki Ceramic Art, ed. Soaring Voices – Contemporary Japanese Architecture and Phenomenology. 2012. Women Ceramic Artists. 2007.
Katsuno, Hirofumi. “Chasing Paradise Lost: The Boom of Modern Silverberg, Miriam. Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Ruins in Contemporary Japan.” Unpublished paper, 2013. Japanese Modern Times. 2006.
Keene, Donald. “Japanese Aesthetics.” In Nancy Hume, pp.27-41. Suzuki, Tomi. Narrating the Self: Fictions of Japanese Modernity. 1996.
LaFleur, William R. Awesome Nightfall: The Life, Times and Poetry of Tansman, Alan. The Aesthetics of Japanese Fascism. 2010. Saigyō. 2003. Tsunoda, Ryusaku, Wm. Theodore De Bary, and Donald Keene. Sources Leech, P. “Freedom and formula: An inter-cultural problem of Western of Japanese Tradition, 2nd ed., Volumes I, II. 1958, 1964. and Japanese aesthetics.” In M. Hussain & R. Wilkinson (Eds.), The pursuit of comparative aesthetics. 2006. Washburn, Dennis C. The Dilemma of the Modern in Japanese Fiction. 1995. Lopes, Dominic McIver. “Shikinen Sengu: The Ontology of Architecture in Japan.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65, 77-84, 2007. Yano, Christine R. Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty and Her Trek Across the Pacific. 2013. Marra, Michael F. ed. A History of Modern Japanese Aesthetics. 2001. Yoda, Tomiko. Gender and Literature: Heian Texts in the Constructions Marra, Michael F., ed. Japanese Hermeneutics. 2002. of Japanese Modernity. 2004.
Marra, Michele. The Aesthetics of Discontent: Politics and Reclusion in
ASA Newsletter are still exploring feasibility. Any comments graduate students in these fields are also News from the or suggestions can be directed to me or to welcome to apply. Independent scholars Garry Hagberg,
Dabney Townsend Successful applicants will join an enthusi- Thanks to everyone who has renewed your Secretary-Treasurer astic team of recognized philosophers, art membership for 2013. The deadline for American Society for Aesthetics scholars, and artists in developing an exciting continuing on the JAAC/membership list P. O. Box 915 arena for aesthetic discussion. was 15 April, and everyone who had not re- Pooler, GA 31322 newed should have received a reminder. If Telephone: 912-748-9524 Applicants: please submit a brief bio and/or you failed to renew, however, don’t despair. 912-247-5868 (cell) CV to the Editors in Chief at
SPRING 2013 The American Society for Aesthetics Graduate E-journal (ASAGE)
The American Society for Aesthetics Graduate E-journal (ASAGE) now accepts article, book review, and dissertation abstract submissions on a rolling basis. The submission window for Issue 5.2 is currently open. All deadline information can be found on the site at
aesthetic, musicological, juridical and his- ASAGE (American Society for Aesthetics Calls for Papers torical perspectives. It could be investigated Graduate E-journal) how the concepts of musical creativity and originality have changed through history and ASAGE is a peer-reviewed, graduate journal Contemporary Aesthetics how such changes are related to the idea of of aesthetics and the philosophy of art, spon- intellectual property regarding the products sored by the American Society for Aesthetics. Contemporary Aesthetics (CA) is an inter- of musical creativity. Another issue to be dis- We publish articles, book reviews, disserta- national, interdisciplinary, peer-and blind-re- cussed is musical quotation and the different tion abstracts, and interviews. For details on viewed online journal of contemporary theory, forms it took through the history of music. how to contribute as an author, reviewer, or research, and application in aesthetics. Now Moreover, papers can deal with the decline blind reviewer, please visit the site. The sub- completing its tenth annual volume, Contem- of the concept (or rather the myth?) of musi- mission period for Issue 5.2 is now open. porary Aesthetics invites submissions that cal genius after Romanticism; but they can bear on contemporary aesthetic theory and also argue, both in historical and philosophi- Any questions or comments can be directed concerns, as well as current reassessments cal terms, against the idea of a decline of to
ASA Newsletter ing an email to
SPRING 2013 experience may open seams of perception, developmental biology, philosophy, theoreti- as a logical tool, a means of thinking or a express a suppressed alterity or introduce a cal linguistics, and robotics, among others – medium of communication and as a creative radical possibility. These topics are already we believe such a dialogue must take place factor within culture. Being a strictly human themes of central consideration for feminist between specialists from a multiplicity of phenomenon, language has always sparkled phenomenology, feminist psychoanalytic academic disciplines. interest –the Western civilization is certainly theory, feminist postcolonial theory, and femi- not the first to explore it. Yet although it is nist philosophies of race. We are now accepting submissions for both broadly acknowledged that the Western lin- paper and poster presentations. Papers guistics owes its modern development to Accordingly, we encourage the submis- will consist of a 20-25 minute presentation the Sanskrit grammarians, in case of other sion of new work that gestures beyond the followed by a 10 minute discussion period. aspects of language it seems that the West- critique of feminist aesthetics to creatively Posters will be displayed and browsing times ern thinkers prefer to reinvent the wheel negotiate or traverse the borders of feminist scheduled after final selections have been rather than to ask the ancients. Our goal in philosophy and art—broadly construed. We made. All submissions should be prepared this conference is to show all the richness of invite abstracts or essays contemplating the for blind review in either PDF or Word form the speculations, conceptions and solutions intersections between gender, sexual orien- and sent to
ASA Newsletter there anything distinctive about evaluative and at least 5 keywords that may be used as losophers, linguists, psychologists, and other perception, or particular types of evaluative search terms. Articles must be in English, interested scholars. A slot of altogether 35 perception? What are the epistemological but we welcome either American or British minutes is planned for each presentation. consequences of evaluative perception? spelling provided the submission remains We envisage an ensuing volume of selected consistent throughout. Please note that all papers (vol. 4 in the series Visual Learning, As well as these questions, the topic of the submissions must be formatted for blind ed. by Andras Benedek and Kristof Nyiri). conference will connect with broader discus- review. sions and debates in aesthetics, epistemol- Submit abstracts (max. 200 words) and short ogy, ethics, and the philosophy of perception, Before submitting, please review our submis- biographical statements (max. 100 words) e.g., the possibility of cognitive penetration, sion requirements, review procedures, and to Prof. Andras Benedek
Please send your submissions electronically Deadline: 1 September 2013 in MS Word format (doc or docx), double- Visual Learning Budapest Conference spaced in a legible font, in accordance with Budapest, Hungary The Chicago Manual of Style (endnotes). Be 15-16 November 2013 sure to accompany your submission with an abstract (max. 250 words), a bibliography, Contributions are invited from educational, communication, and media theorists, phi-
SPRING 2013 the Humanities and Social Sciences. Inquir- ies in English may be sent to Ira Newman; Department of Philosophy; Mansfield Uni- versity; Mansfield PA 16933 (USA) at
For further information contact Hugh J. Silverman,IAPL Executive Director at:
International Society for Philosophy of Music Education, The Ninth International Symposium on the Philosophy of Music Education New York, New York 5-9 June 2013
This symposium will bring together a diverse array of international philosophers, scholars, teachers, teacher educators, and perform- ers interested in engaging in philosophical research concerning music education. The symposium seeks to encourage and stimu- late discussion on a wide range of topics relating to the philosophy of music educa- Upcoming Events will give the 2013 Wollheim Memorial Lec- tion from international and interdisciplinary ture, and Jonathan Gold (Pulitzer Prize- perspectives. winning food critic for the L.A. Times) in conversation with Carolyn Korsmeyer (SUNY We are very pleased to announce that Es- American Society for Aesthetics Rocky Buffalo). telle Jorgensen will be our featured keynote Mountain Division Meeting speaker. Jorgensen is founder and editor Santa Fe, New Mexico There will be panels on such topics as aes- of Philosophy of Music Education Review, 12-14 July 2013 thetics and implicit bias, the aesthetics of general editor for the Counterpoints: Music wine, the aesthetics of Friday Night Lights, and Education series at Indiana University Davenport Keynote Address will be give by artworks and place, aesthetics and the sens- Press, founder of the Philosophy Special Sarah Worth, Furman University. Michael es, and aesthetics and the law. Further in- Research Interest Group for the US National Manson Artist Keynote Address will be given formation will be forthcoming soon at < http:// Association of Music Education (NAfME) and by Siegfried Halus. www.aesthetics-online.org/events/index. co-founder of the International Society for the php?events_id=491>. Philosophy of Music Education. For further information on the Rocky Moun- tain Division, including conference program More information about the International and registration, see
ASA Newsletter Keynote speakers: Paolo D’Angelo (Uni- derstanding? What is the role of the bodily The Critical Studies Research Group is versità degli Studi Roma Tre), Tomáš Hlobil motor knowledge in the sense-giving process pleased to invite scholars, artists and practi- (Univerzita Karlova v Praze), Maria Elisabeth of musical comprehension? What faculties tioners to participate in its second postgradu- Reicher-Marek (Philosophisches Institut der underlie musical understanding and how are ate conference, Challenging Aesthetics, to RWTH Aachen). See the conference website these reflected in neuroscientific and psycho- consider - and indeed to contest – the rela- at
SPRING 2013 More information is available on the confer- theorists, we intend to trace a comprehensive Fourth International Conference on the ence website:
ASA Newsletter nundrum, and is available on Kindle and as The second exhibition, titled “Selections a book from Amazon.” from the Haecceities Series,” was at the Fort In Memoriam Wayne Museum of Art from 10 November-2 Editions Rodopi is pleased to present a new December. Information about each show, We are saddened to learn of the passing of publication by MICHAEL KRAUSZ: Oneness including installation views and a lecture on Morris Grossman on 12 December 2012 at and the Displacement of Self: Dialogues on the limits of abstraction in art given at IPFW, the age of 90. Self-Realization. can be found on Strayer’s website at:
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ASA Newsletter edited by David Goldblatt and Henry Pratt ISSN 1089-1668
The Newsletter is published three times a year by the American Society for Aesthetics. Subscriptions are available to non-mem- bers for $15 per year plus postage. For subscription or membership information: ASA, c/o Dabney Townsend, PO box 915, Pooler, GA 31322-0915; Tel. 912-748-9524; email:
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ASA Newsletter